Meet Kj Southworth | The Author

KJ Southworth

K J Southworth spent her teens in survival mode, her twenties in a warrior state battling serious depression, and her thirties using hard-won wisdom to thrive. At the age of four she wrote her first 'chapter book' in which aliens chose her cat, Lord Byron, to be their king. She still believes it's destined to be a classic. As she continues down her career path, her husband and young daughter are her greatest source of support. They all live together in the Greater Toronto Area with three hilarious cats.

The Different Faces of KJ

KJ's New Book

The Line

The City—the last bastion on a distant desert planet.

Daryl is released from the brutal confines of the Prison. Broken and suicidal, the ex-convict tries to disappear into the restrictive caste system.

Lyons Emmett is the ruthless head of Madman, the most powerful organization in the Criminal underworld. He is fixated on ruling the City and exterminates anyone he perceives as a threat.

Ripping Daryl from obscurity, Lyons corners the former thief into a perilous mission. He isn’t above sending his fearsome enforcer, Jace Locket, to emphasize what will happen should Daryl refuse. To escape these callous machinations, Daryl turns to an unlikely group of assassins, freaks, inventors and outcasts. But in the City, there are precious few people anyone can trust.

The new thriller by debut author K.J. Southworth uses fast-paced action to explore an immersive world full of unique characters.

Testimonials for The Line

This daring and dark dystopian novel follows drifter Daryl, a cop turned criminal, on a journey to find a place in the unforgiving landscape of the City. Returning from years in the Prison, the former convict adjusts to a new life and discovers that being good or bad isn’t as black and white as the law would have you believe. With lives on the line, Daryl has to bend rules to survive, and that includes crossing lines no one knew existed.
Debut novelist, KJ Southworth builds an immersive world, full of colourful castaways strewn across the desert of the City in makeshift societies like a futuristic Western where Daryl walks a well-trodden path from outlaw to saviour.

Mrs Al-Mousawi

(amazon.co.uk review)

I picked this book up for the cover and was not disappointed. It takes place in a gritty, dystopian city, and follows a character navigating the harsh streets. With names like Madman and Frenzy it invoked a Mad Max vibe to me and that's not far off the mark here but the bureaucracy of the City seems more organized than that. The story kept me guessing the whole time and I couldn't put it down the second half.
There's some small typos here and there but nothing major. The main issue that caused me to give this 4 stars instead of 5 was the main character being named Daryl. Being written in first person, that name made me think the main character was a man. I didn't realize she was a woman until I was almost a quarter through the book. Again, not a major issue. The realization was a little jarring and I had to reread some parts with that in mind but then I was back into the story and enjoying it.
Hoping for more adventures with these characters! Frenzy is adorable!

Ray Kraft

(amazon.com review)

I've finally started The Line, and wow! What a shot of adrenaline so far! I love your world building and the constant sense of movement in the first two chapters! I'm very excited to keep going!
It has its own style, and that's priority one for me as a reader. It really hits the ground running, but somehow you toss a lot of detail at me (especially the unique "caste system" of the world) without ever making me feel lost or like I need to go back and reread something.
I also love Daryl's constant attempts to remain detached while the world just won't let him. I identify with that on so many levels.

Robert Moores

(goodreads review)

Clever and thrilling, The Line grips you by the heart and doesn’t let go. There is never an instance where the obvious happens; the result is a pumped, well-woven action-thriller in a gritty dystopia. K.J. Southworth has given us a main character who is—simply put—bad-ass, yet a real human being at the same time. One of the things I liked most about this book was the layers and layers of Daryl, each chapter tantalizingly feeding the greed and giving us the information to piece together what makes this thief tick in such a horribly broken world.
The Line is witty, an excellent read for anyone ready to be sucked into a world so well built, you’ll think you’re there. Buckle up, you’re in for a ride.

Kassidy Duncan

(goodreads review)

“Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.”